LONDON: The UK government is exploring the possibility of sending failed asylum seekers, including small boat arrivals, to overseas “migrant hubs,” Sky News reported on Saturday.

A Home Office source told political correspondent Amanda Akass that discussions were in the “very early stages,” with ministers closely examining Italy’s agreement with Albania, where two facilities process asylum seekers offshore.

Government sources also told The Times that potential partner nations include Albania, Serbia, Bosnia and North Macedonia, though officials have not confirmed which countries are under consideration.

“They don’t want to pre-empt any discussions which haven’t even officially begun yet,” according to the report.

The move follows a surge in Channel crossings, with 246 people arriving on Friday and 341 on Thursday, pushing the year’s total past 5,000 — the earliest in the year this milestone has been reached since records began in 2018.

The ruling Labour Party’s offshore processing plan is expected to differ from the previous Conservative government’s Rwanda scheme, which aimed to deport all illegal arrivals but was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court in 2023.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp of the opposition Conservative Party criticized the plan, calling it an admission of failure.

“This is Labour admitting they made a catastrophic mistake in canceling the Rwanda scheme before it even started. The fact they are now looking at offshore processing shows they were wrong to cancel Rwanda before it even started and shows their attempts to ‘smash the gangs’ have failed,” he said.

“In fact, illegal immigrants crossing the channel are up 28 percent since the election and this year has been the worst ever. Labour has lost control of our borders. They should urgently start the Rwanda removals scheme,” he added.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, meanwhile, welcomed the end of the Rwanda scheme but urged faster asylum processing, describing the number of people crossing the Channel so far this year as “really worrying.”

He added: “I’m actually glad that the government scrapped the Rwanda scheme because it wasn’t working as a deterrent. If they’ve got a better scheme that will work, we’ll look at that.”

He added that the previous scheme was ineffective as well as costing huge amounts of money.

“But they’ve also got to do quite a few other things. There’s too many hotels that are being used because people aren’t being processed quickly enough, and Liberal Democrats have argued for a long time that if you process people, you give them the right to work so they can actually contribute. That’s the way you could save a lot of money, and I think taxpayers would support that,” he said.

The UK recently signed an agreement with France to strengthen cooperation against people smuggling, while the government’s Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill continues its passage through Parliament.

The Home Office was contacted for further comment but has so far failed to respond.